


Hedgehog's Dilemma

by Kibetha



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Boys Being Boys, Christmas Presents, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Gloves, Kurusu Akira being a little shit, M/M, Play Fighting, Post-Canon, Rank 8 but soft af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28270722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kibetha/pseuds/Kibetha
Summary: A hedgehog. A woolly, fluffy, adorable hedgehog.Goro wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting to find inside the wrapping paper of his boyfriend’s first Christmas present to him, but it certainly hadn’t been the fuzzy little pest that was staring up at him from his lap.In which Akira is a little shit, and Goro does his best to kill him. It's just another Christmas in Leblanc's attic.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 4
Kudos: 108
Collections: 21 plus akeshuake server yuletide 2020 event, Quality Persona Fics





	Hedgehog's Dilemma

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt “Gloves” for the 21+ akeshuake server’s Yuletide event. What’s that, you say? This should have been posted three days ago? Sssssshhhhhh.
> 
> The hedgehog inspiration is from [To Know Your Target](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26781733) by Kiva and Pana. Go read it, it’s amazing and makes me die laughing (and/or crying) several times a chapter. Also I will never be able to unsee Akechi Goro as an adorable prickly hedgehog.
> 
> Thank you to [Hao](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epinicion) and [Guroboy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/guroakechi) for betaing and for looking up cute hedgehog gloves with me when we were meant to be writing!

A hedgehog. A woolly, fluffy, adorable hedgehog.

Goro wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting to find inside the wrapping paper of his boyfriend’s first Christmas present to him, but it certainly hadn’t been the fuzzy little pest that was staring up at him from his lap. Then again, if Akira ever did anything he expected, he’d assume he was some kind of evil clone sent by the Conspiracy to brainwash Goro into working for them again through the power of free coffee and unfairly good hugs (which was, sadly, not as impossible as it sounded... and might actually work). But even for Akira, getting Akechi Goro a stuffed toy for Christmas was a questionable decision.

He shot a confused frown at Akira, hoping for some kind of explanation, but all he got was that bland, inoffensive smile that could mean anything from ‘I know you’re going to shoot me in the head tomorrow’ to ‘I’m imagining what your clothes would look like on my floor’. Well, if it was like _that..._ Goro picked up the little hedgehog delicately between finger and thumb. It was about the same size as his hand, knitted in a warm, rich brown that was softer than he’d expected. Was it some kind of special wool? He stroked the fabric with his thumb and was surprised to find that what he’d thought was a stuffed toy wasn’t actually stuffed at all. He turned it over to find a wide hole at the hedgehog’s bottom, and suddenly understood what he was holding. The cute little hedgehog, with its big black eyes and fluffy woollen spines, was actually a glove.

Goro sighed heavily. He may not go by his old codename anymore, but his boyfriend never stopped living up to the name. Goro held Akira’s deadpan gaze as he slipped the mitten over his bare hand, wiggling his thumb into place and folding the hedgehog’s spines down over his fingers. With the foldback pocket pulled forward, the hedgehog looked like it was curling up over his fingers to protect them from the cold with its spines. It was, quite frankly, sickeningly cute – not that Akira would ever hear him say it out loud. He sighed again and went to retrieve the other glove from the remainder of the wrapping... but it was nowhere to be found. Akira had given him one lonely hedgehog glove.

He thought it was a mistake until he turned to look at his boyfriend again and found Joker smirking back at him. Oh. Oh no. “Akira.”

There was a light in Akira’s eyes that instantly filled him with both excitement and dread. “Don’t you like them? I thought they were very you.”

Goro gritted his teeth. He would not rise to such clumsily thrown bait. He was _not prickly_. “There is no _them_ to like,” he declared calmly. _Very_ calmly. “This is a glove, correct? Is it not part of a pair? What happened to the other one?”

Akira’s smirk stretched. “You’ll have to fight me for it,” he replied casually, shoving his hands in his pockets.

He stared at him in disbelief. “Have you lost the few braincells you had left?”

“What? That’s your whole thing with gloves, right?”

Goro rolled his eyes to the ceiling, praying to Leblanc’s dusty beams for patience. He’d hoped this wasn’t going where he thought it was, but Akira was at least predictable in one thing in life: he was an _idiot_. “There are so many things wrong with that statement that I don’t even know where to _start._ ”

Grey eyes danced with mischief. “I’ve heard the beginning is a very good pla – ”

“Don’t even finish that sentence,” Goro snapped, ignoring the amused snort that erupted from his boyfriend’s nose. When he didn’t love him so much it hurt, Goro wondered why he hadn’t shot Akira when he had the chance. “What makes you think I want the other one of these... _monstrosities_ , anyway?” he snarled, shoving his gloved hand in Akira’s face. “Let alone that I would fight you for it? This is nonsensical.”

Akira’s lips twitched again. He was obviously seconds from laughing, but somehow holding it together for just long enough to _really_ piss Goro off. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, the fond challenge in his gaze never fading. “What’s the matter? Too... _spineless?_ ”

“You’re not funny.”

“I’m hilarious. Come on, are you really gonna back down?”

Was it too much to roll his eyes a second time? Akira was certainly doing his best to earn it. “Honestly, Akira, you really think I’d fall for such a juvenile attempt at – ”

Goro didn’t make a habit of cutting himself off in the middle of sentences. He didn’t enjoy being interrupted. When he had something to say, he found it extremely offensive if the chosen recipient of his words rejected the wisdom or witty repartee he was about to gift to them. Akira, of course, knew that. Which was why the little _bastard_ had chosen that exact moment to whip out the matching twin of the hedgehog glove from his pocket, and slap his boyfriend with it. Hard. In the face.

Goro was going to kill him.

“I’m going to kill you,” Goro informed Akira cheerfully, before lunging for his throat.

It wasn’t exactly the first time they’d play-fought, or _actually_ fought (or fought to the death in the bowels of the metaphysical incarnation of the human soul, but they tended to gloss over that one in polite company). Goro knew Akira’s tricks better than anyone, but Akira knew how single-minded and brutal his boyfriend could be when he was really pissed. The thief ducked away from his first swipe, leaving just the ghost of his grin in his wake. Goro spun in time to dodge the sweeping kick that would have taken out his knees, and used the moment Akira was off-balance to make a grab for the hedgehog in his left hand. Perhaps if he managed to get the stupid thing off him, Akira would concede defeat and beg for his forgiveness. Perhaps pigs might also fly.

Akira just laughed and, at the last second, tossed the glove high into the rafters above them. Goro looked at him like he was crazy. Shaking his head at the moron’s antics, he took a step back to try and catch the hedgehog as it arced back down towards him. Of course, that was when Akira threw his full weight into Goro’s legs and tackled him to the floor.

It wasn’t a smooth journey down. Goro’s shoulder smacked into the desk chair as he fell, which made Akira collide with his knees then rebound into the corner of his bed with a yelp. They both crashed to earth in a tangle of bruised and swearing teenager on the wooden floorboards. A noise a bit like the groan of a beached whale escaped Akira’s mouth where it had ended up buried in Goro’s stomach. It seemed like the wooden bedpost had driven most of the breath from Akira’s lungs, so Goro helped him out by grabbing a handful of his hair and yanking until he gasped for air again. He was just _such_ a thoughtful, considerate partner.

“I am – ” Goro hissed as he pulled Akira off him by the hair, “– going to – ” he reached out with his free hand to grab for the hedgehog, “ – fucking – FUCK YOU!” and Akira kicked it across the room with a hoarse wheeze of glee.

“Wine and dine me first,” Akira laughed breathlessly as Goro let out an inarticulate roar of fury. “A guy might get – ” They’d never find out what a guy might get, as Goro decided he’d heard enough out of his idiot boyfriend and slapped a hand over his mouth, rolling over to pin him to the ground.

He really should have expected the absolute _animal_ he was dating to lick his hand, suddenly finding himself under attack by a truly alarming quantity of tongue. Fortunately for Goro, the glove on his left hand did its job and protected him from the assault of cold slime, and Akira just got a mouthful of woolly hedgehog for his troubles. For a second, Goro cackled at the revulsion on his boyfriend’s face, enjoying the instant karmic retribution. Then Akira drove a knee into his stomach and it was his turn struggling to breathe.

Goro coughed, paralysed more by indignation than by the pain. Not that Akira had pulled his punches, holy _shit._ He glanced up through teary eyes and found Akira scrambling away from him towards the innocent, harmless little brown menace crumpled in the corner of the attic. He was closing in on the target, movements still a little wobbly from the bedpost’s attempt to remodel his ribs, but if Goro didn’t think of something, Akira would win. That simply wasn’t an acceptable outcome. He had years of combat experience, a mind sharp as diamonds and the immutable certitude that Kurusu Akira deserved to eat dirt. Joker could not prevail.

It was the work of seconds to turn Akira’s home turf against him. A swift capture and precise release, and the duvet off of Akira’s bed was sailing across the room at the perfect arc to loop over Akira’s head and shoulders and drag him down to the unforgiving floor. His nemesis collapsed under the thick, heavy weight of quilted subjugation, and Goro moved in to secure his victory.

He took his time clambering over the groaning, duvet-shrouded remains of his boyfriend to pluck his prize from the floor in front of him. The little hedgehog was a bit dusty, so he carefully brushed off the few specks of dirt from the plush wool of its spines as he sat back on some conveniently flat part of the lump beneath him. A choked-off “grrk” told him it was probably Akira’s ribcage. How unfortunate.

When he was sure his triumph was unmarred by cobwebs or other attic grime, Goro found a likely-looking bit of duvet and carefully extracted one black, curly head from inside. Akira’s eyes flickered open, dazed. The little hedgehog stared back at him, propped up beside Goro’s smug face.

“I think you’ll find I win, darling,” Goro declared.

Akira’s head flopped back down with a painful-sounding thump, and a plaintive groan rumbled through the floorboards. “You are... the worst.”

“You’re the one who genuinely attempted to _lick my hand._ What are you, four?”

“... my tongue is still fuzzy,” Akira lamented.

Goro laughed softly as he turned the little hedgehog over to inspect it, a perfect match to the one still on his hand. The soft wool felt like a caress on his fingertips compared to the cold kiss of leather he was so used to. It was almost surreal. “This is... not quite how I imagined our rematch going,” he murmured.

Akira stilled, then twisted a little to look up at him. “Disappointed?”

Goro opened his mouth to ask how a brawl over a pair of novelty gloves could possibly compete with the memory of their epic duel in Mementos, but he happened to glance down at his boyfriend before he spoke. One sharp grey eye gleamed up at him from under a mess of rumpled curls. Akira’s eyes were always so expressive in comparison to his sparse words; something about that look told him that the seemingly innocuous question was more than it seemed. Akira’s lip was bleeding slightly and there was a smudge of something grey in his hair (because the attic was never clean no matter how many times they washed it, and neither was Akira’s hair). There was a challenge in his eyes, but also an unfathomable depth of fondness. It was both the same and so very much more than the patient sorrow Akira had been wearing in Shibuya that day two years ago, when Goro declared his undying hatred for the boy who would become his everything. That face had said, ‘I understand’ – in more ways than Goro had known at the time. But this one? This one said, ‘Do you?’

He thought that this time, perhaps, he understood.

Tearing off his glove back in Shibuya’s Station Square had felt electrifying, but his hand had been cold in the November chill as he walked away. Now, as he slipped his fingers into the soft, woollen embrace of a Christmas hedgehog, the adrenaline of the fight slipped away to make way for a warmth he couldn’t have even imagined back then. He reached out and carefully swiped a thumb over the cut on Akira’s bottom lip, relishing the way he leaned into the touch even as he flinched from the pain. The little hedgehog pressed up against Akira’s face, and its spines were soft against his skin.

“Never,” Goro smirked. “Now shut up and kiss me.”

Akira beamed, turning his face up like a flower to the sun. “As my prickly overlord commands.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
